A collection of poems and musings by a rookie poet and constant dreamer - J.O.S.H

Once again thank you for coming! And I hope you enjoy this momentary distraction please leave your comments or thoughts. They are most welcome!

Monday, 25 April 2011

Sarah Simpson's Grave

Hi all,

It's been a while! Too long I say. Hi Cyber space, good to see you again. There was something fascinating about this grave. It gave me a real idea of who this lady was...or perhaps who it was that might have known her and that is very telling too.

It twas the Saturday night before Easter and we went ghost hunting. We came to a cemetry in Castlereagh a place pretty close to the party. We got out and ventured into this graveyard. It was an interesting metaphor for life. The bush had literally overgrown the tombstones in a lot of cases and in others the graves had become stones the engravings on them had been completely whithered away.

It's a testament to how destructible our legacies are. It is such an easy place to miss and old. My Pop reckons it was probably where the first settlement was around Penrith area, close to the river. He's probably right. Some of the grave is well tended. THe people buried their are from the 1800s some dating as far back as 1808. Now for those not from Aus, that's only about 20 years since the first settlement (white settlement) really began so, in our way of reckoning it's pretty bloody old!

Another interesting thing about the night was the amazing load of people there...it was just like a teen movie. We even met two girls who would fit in pretty well to that dynamic. Cute and a little stupid sounding. They had their male protectors with them. It kind of killed the mood though having them say how lame it was...scary or not it was not lame and I'm going to tell you why.

Sarah's grave. Who is Sarah? Well everyone in Penrith knows (except for me until Saturday) and everyone doesn't know. It's really just an urban legend about a girl killed at 17 who if you turn your headlights on and off six times will appear. The real Sarah Simpson though had something very interesting about her.

Her grave was by itself not roped off with fence like others. She was also 42 which again tells you how lasting a persons legacy is, but then her grave has a poem on it. A good six or seven lines or so. If you look close enough at that picture above you'll see it. But it's a little too blurry to make out. But as I wrote earlier it says something about her. It's a really sad poem, it's talking about ashes to ashes dust to dust...but it's deeper than that. More like joining the death, but there's this strange half-heartedness to the words and this very real melancholy. It told me a lot about her. She thought a lot, which I can relate to and to me it means a lot finding real empathy in someone that lived more than 150 years ago. Sarah felt a lot and thoe around her knew it, or perhaps it's not Sarah at all. Maybe someone else loved her so dearly and his loneliness is coming through in the last passage he wanted carved into his lover's grave.

Either way, you don't find that with many other graves. Someone who leaves an impression like that. It makes you wonder...truth be told I wish I could copy out what was written on that grave and you know what after thinking and reflecting on it, I'll do just that. I'll post it up tomorrow! So readers don't despair you'll see what I'm talking about very soon!

HAPPY EASTER! Don't worry there's going to be a few more posts tonight for you all to sift through!